An Indian adventure
Sightsavers’ Kat and Jen recently ran the Mumbai Marathon! Read about their epic journey here.
30 degree heat, rogue goats and the notorious Indian traffic were no match for dedicated staff Jennie Rule and Katrina Scaife, when they ran the Mumbai marathon for Sightsavers in January.
Kat and Jen, who work in the Corporate Fundraising Team, have so far raised over £1,000! Plagued by injury and illness, and at times unable to train due to the treacherously icy streets, the unperturbed pair were determined to complete the race, which is sponsored by Sightsavers’ biggest corporate supporter Standard Chartered bank.
Jen finished the 26 mile course in less than five hours, and Kat made it in six and a half, impressive going given the conditions! To sponsor them, visit www.justgiving.com/KattyandGingerJen.
“I’m no marathon runner,” said Kat. “I do quite a bit of exercise but I’ve never been very good at running. I got a rotten virus followed by a chest infection in October, which took me out of training for two months. But I decided I’d rather go and fail than let Jen go to Mumbai on her own.
By the time the starter pistol went off at 6.45 am on Sunday 17 January, I was pretty resigned to my fate. However I was pleasantly surprised, the first hour slipped by and I managed to keep my pace and didn’t feel the need to stop.
As I got into the 14th mile, things started to change, my legs were really aching and I could feel blisters on my feet. I decided to alternate between walking and jogging. Running was really painful, every step hurt and it made the kilometres feel endless. My dad had given me some audio books for my iPod so I put on Fawlty Towers and that’s when the experience became really surreal, hurrying across the Bandra Sealink Bridge, chuckling to myself like a lunatic.
At this point they started opening the roads and the course became increasingly chaotic! At one point a goat wandered into my path and I almost tripped over it. I now had to cross roads, which in Mumbai is terrifying. Traffic lights appear to be voluntary guidelines for the Mumbai motorist. I find crossing roads in Mumbai stressful anyway, let alone when I’m nearing the verge of physical exhaustion.
Unlike the London Marathon with its thousands of participants and spectators, at the end of the Mumbai Marathon all visible signs of the race were gone. By this time I’d covered over 42 kilometres, and was lost and completely exhausted: my vision of crossing the finish line to Europe’s ‘the Final Countdown’ were fast diminishing.
When I reached a junction and bumped into a woman wearing a race bib it turned out she not only spoke English, but knew the way! We walked to the finish line together.
People have asked me why on Earth would I try to run the Mumbai Marathon? There’s no simple answer, I like a challenge and an adventure, I also wanted to run for Sightsavers and for personal reasons, but I think at the end of the day it comes down to the fact that Jennie and I are both bonkers.”
You can click here to read Jen’s account.
Thank goodness for Ibuprofen!
Sightsavers’ Jennie Rule shares her experience of running the Mumbai Marathon."Fortunately for me, I had run a marathon once before so had some idea of what running that distance feels like, but there was no planning I could have done to prepare me for running in Mumbai."
We landed a day and a half before the race – not really enough time to acclimatise, but we did our best. On the day we had to get up at 4am to eat breakfast. We had no fridge or kettle in our rooms, and the dining hall didn’t open until 7.30am, so the night before we had to beg for something to eat. The best they could offer was a thermos of warm powdered milk – mmmm!
We attempted to go to the toilet at the start… you had to negotiate your way up a very narrow, very slippery, very dirty staircase to then be greeted by a long drop – just a hole in the floor – nice!
We started on time and I ran with Kat for a short distance before she told me to run on. We’d decided pre-race that we wouldn’t try to stay together as we run at different paces. The first couple of hours were great, I felt really strong, the crowds were cheering “COME ON LADY!” and there were bands playing as well.
There was a distinct lack of water or energy drinks on the course. You could go a good five miles without a drink station. I ran solidly until about 27k, by which point I had run out of Lucozade Sport, and there had been no sign of water for a couple of kilometres, and I couldn’t see anything in the distance. I started feeling quite faint, so walked for a bit. The sun was up and the heat was awful. I was so thirsty by now, I ended up flagging down a van that drove past and asking if they had any water – thank God they did!
Whenever I came across the very sporadic water stations I started taking two bottles, then I’d get two or three kids running up to me and begging for the water – they’d get told off by the marshals and run away again. This is the sort of experience that makes running in a city like Mumbai unique – that and the random goats on the course. I ran/walked the last 10k, I felt really awful and my legs were getting heavy. The minute I crossed the line I started crying! I was so emotional, and felt like death. But also on top of the world! The heat and humidity and air quality were really hard to cope with, which makes me even prouder that we both finished.
